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Farmers to lose 27 per cent from promised solar power rates Continued from page 6 17 · Thursday, July 15, 2010 OAKVILLE BEAVER · www.oakvillebeaver.com 80.2 cents per kilowatt to 58.8 cents per kilowatt to solar power producers using ground-mounted systems, up to 10 kilowatts. There are no applicants in Oakville that are affected, said Seiler because all residential installations in town are roof mounted. However, she said there are a great number of individuals in north Halton that have applied for the program subsidy from the Ontario Power Authority (OPA). The OPA held up applications for groundmounted solar systems after a large number of applicants came forward. "Some people did get the contract at the 80.2 cent rate, but there is a significant chunk of people, who submitted applications and those applications were held up and it now looks like they won't be getting the 80.2 cent rate," said Seiler. She said the majority of the 10,000-11,000 applicants for the ground-mounted subsidy are still on hold. Ground-mounted solar producers who generate more than 10 kilowatts are unaffected. Those rates are lower already because the larger the installation, the cheaper it becomes per unit. It takes about 50 solar panels to produce 10 kilowatts. Under the 80.2 cents per KW arrangement, a homeowner or farmer could recoup his or her costs after about eight years, producing 7.8 KW, according to HEN. According to the Brad Duguid, Ontario's energy minister, producers will still make 11 per cent on their investment, compared to the 25 to 30 per cent they would have received previously. "I recognize that they're disappointed because they (the solar producers) were going to make a whack of dough," Duguid was quoted in the Toronto Star. He added, "There's close to five million consumers (of electricity) throughout the province that are being asked to foot the bill." He added that it costs much less to install a ground-mounted solar system instead of the roof-top one. Rooftop mountings were unaffected by the announcement. However, that sentiment does not hold up with everyone. "The biggest frustration in this is that the majority of what the OPA and the ministry of energy and infrastructure is saying is simply not true. It's completely false," said Ray Jarvis, president of Solar Direct Canada. "They keep saying that ground mounted is cheaper. Now everyone in the industry knows that not to be true." He added that it is much more expensive to install a solar system on the ground than it is on the roof. To attach a solar panel to the roof there is already an existing structure with a foundation. To attach the panels to the ground, an installer has to build a structure with a foundation. He said for a 10 KW tracker, 40 tons of concrete have to go in the ground. There is long trenching involved along with the need to use thick, underground, armoured cable. "Anyone with a $1,000 worth of tools can install solar panels on a roof ­ anyone who knows what they're doing ­ but when you install them in the ground we need a crane, an excavator, a dump truck, we need trenching equipment. We need $100,000 worth of equipment to install these things," he said. Jarvis said his company is severely affected by the announcement because about 90 per cent of his clients consist of ground-based installations. His company develops, manufactures and installs the products. "We've already paid for a lot of what we expect to be installing in the next year," he said. "All of a sudden, that market has just disappeared and left us with a product that we can't sell for the same price." His ground-mounted clients are going to get 27 per cent less. "In order to keep their margins, we'd have to sell for 27 per cent less. Unfortunately, we don't have a 27 per cent profit margin," he said. Jarvis said he hopes the decision will be reversed, or at least that the applicants that have already submitted the paper work to the OPA will get the previous rate. Jarvis believes the province knew it might make the changes months before it actually did on Canada Day weekend. "We put in a lot of applications and we've seen them come back," he said. "All of a sudden, our ground-based applications stopped coming back in January, yet our roof-top applications would come back right away." He said at the time he couldn't figure out why roof-top applications were returning approved, where as the ground-mounted were being put on hold. He said if the government had known about possible changes and notified people that such changes could come, he could have made a different business plan. "To me this is negligence, if not fraud," he said. "I'm just beside myself with anger over this government with how they've handled this program. This didn't have to happen." Jarvis said the government could have reduced the subsidy level across the board, rather than only attacking the rural residential clients. He said the subsidy could have been reduced "In order to keep their margins, we'd have to sell for 27 per cent less. Unfortunately we don't have a 27 per cent profit margin." Ray Jarvis,president, Solar Direct Canada n by about two per cent across the board, instead of by 27 per cent for only one group. The McGuinty government decision is also being condemned by Conservative Halton MPP Ted Chudleigh. "These people believed Premier McGuinty regarding the viability of the program and trusted his pledge on payment. He lied," Chudleigh said in a press release. "While lying comes easily to the Premier, we in Ontario shouldn't suggest his lack of credibility should have been enough to scare off those who choose to take part in the MicroFit Program," said Chudleigh. "That is a slippery slope of decay. If our society takes that attitude, we are lost. The McGuinty government needs to rectify this situation immediately." Despite some of the grief, one company said the decision will have no negative effect on its business. Solar Semiconductor Inc and Conex Energy Inc plan to build a joint facility in Oakville to produce groundmounted and corporate roof-top solar panel technologies. Nava Akkineni, executive vice president of Solar Semiconductor, said this will do little to slow down the solar technology momentum. "If you ask me if it will affect the business, it should not because the costs for installation cost for groundmounted is much lower than the commercial roof-top," he said. "One reason is the roof-lease on a commercial building is higher. The second thing is that farming land is very cheap. That's why I think the government did what they did." 1801 Lakeshore Road West Phone 905-822-1801 www.solsticerestaurant.ca